ANOTHER VIEW
Dont blame the machines

Published: May 4, 2004 8:00PM

The statistics at first sound alarming. A new government report shows that the number of U.S. traffic deaths rose nearly 1 percent last year, reaching a 13-year high of 43,220. Some headlines attributed the increase in fatalities to the favorite whipping boy of everyone, it seems, but consumers: the SUV.
A deeper reading of the story provides context the attention-grabbing headlines leave out. First, for instance, we learn that while overall fatality numbers have in recent years seen a modest increase, they remain much lower today than in the past, when many more Americans were being killed each year on roads far less crowded than todays.
Also less than shocking was the increase in SUV fatalities, as there are more SUVs on the road every year and a certain number of these are bound to end up as statistics.
Blaming it on the machines reflects a typically modern tendency to remove personal responsibility from the equation, portraying people as passive victims of circumstance or malfeasance rather than free and active authors of their own fates. That strengthens the hand of those who see the solution to all lifes challenges and misfortunes as more government paternalism.
The Lima (Ohio) News